Raspberries For Christmas!

YACK!

Hey, ma....I got something' for ya, and it ain't a raspberry.

It's been four barf-drenched days since the beginning of Ava's first stomach bug, and let me tell you, when she gets sick, she commits, because this one was a four-day long hummmmdinger.

Without dragging you through he gut-wrenching details, I'm very much embarrassed that it took me three days to realize that clear liquids (such as Pedialyte) would be a bit more productive than calorie-fortified formula.  I think I was so panicked about her losing precious calories (which she was going to lose out one end or the other anyway), I went into sort of a food-shoveling frenzy, frantically attempting to feed her a smidgen of something that might miraculously stick to her cramping stomach. 

 In my overbearing insanity, every memory of wanting absolutely nothing of substance when I had childhood stomach bugs was somehow erased and replaced with the irrepressible urge to FEED, FEED NOW, FEED MUCH, FEED OFTEN.  And so our imaginary baby-Mommy exchange went something like this:

You want a bottle, sweet baby?

NO.  FEEL POO.

But you need to eat.

NO EAT.  WILL YACK.

I think you need to eat.

NOOOO

I will go make you a bottle.

DON'T LEAVE!!!  MOMMY IS THE WORLD!!

Just a second, sweetie.  Gonna put you down for just a second...

NOOOOOOO WORLD SUCKING WORMHOLE WHERE IS MOOOOOOOOOM?!?!

I'm almost done.... You're okay, baby, you're okay!

YYYYEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHHGGGGHHH IT'S ALL OVERRRRRRRR 

Here I am, honey!  And I have a bottle!

*SNIF* *HIC*  OH, YOU BACK.  OHHHHHH MOMMY.  I CAN SPLAT ON YOU.  *FLOP* *SIGH*

Heeere's lunch!

NYAH.

Want a bite of sweet peas?

YYYYERGH.

Just....take....the bottle..... Need milk....

UH-UH.  UUUNH!   NERRRRRRRR!  *pop*

There ya go!  Just had to get going....

-two minutes later-

UH, MA....

Uh-oh.

GGGGGGLLARBBPFFFT!!!!!!!

....and every time,  EVERY STINKING TIME, it was like a huge surprise that she had contributed yet another layer of yellow paint on the walls.  

Now, I would like to share with you a handful of factuals I have gleaned from this valuable learning opportunity:

Upon the onset of a stomach bug, give clear fluids and plenty of couch snuggles....and nothing else for awhile.  The writhing, cramping stomach muscle in there needs a break.

Stop feeding, even when you think baby should not be full.  Everyone's appetite is different from day to day.  If you overfeed baby, chances are the overabundance will end forcibly ejected, anyway. It's better to keep a little down than to lose a lot on your loafers.

And next time Ava comes down with a typical stomach bug, I will hopefully recall this nerve-trying, sleep-deprived episode and resist the urge to force-feed her rich dairy, gagworthy purees, and meatballs.

"This bug has got me lookin' so crazy right now...."

Trade

The first night in a week and a half that I've had more than two hours of sleep, and I'm up at five a.m. with a bowl of cereal and a jillion thoughts hopping around like popcorn in my head.  I feel more refreshed than I have the right to be for keeping such hours....maybe that's my body rewarding me for all the late night mommying shifts I've been pulling.

I have some glad news to share, just in time for the holidays: Ava's appetite decided to drop back in on us while we were all iced in at home over the past weekend!  I was so thrilled, I fed her anything that I thought she could chew --  carrot mush, yogurt, pickles, bits of soft blueberry cereal, mashed potatoes clogged with butter and nutmeg, mashed baked beans -- everything but the dog chow in Honey's bowl.  And it was FUN.  Ava would get so wound up in response, I would have to wait for her to stop dancing and waggling her head back and forth after every bite in order to hit my aim with the baby spoon (lest I accidentally poke her in the uvula.  YOW.)

Her oral formula intake went from a hard-fought six ounces (average) to a strong, eager fourteen.  We still kept her on the pump at a low rate through most of the day and during her evening sleep, but this sudden shift in dedication to her bottle made us feel that Christmas had arrived early.  Now I spend quite a bit of the day curled up with her in the nursery glider, contentedly administering ounce after ounce.  There's no fight, no fidget.  It might still take her awhile to finish a bottle at her speed, but the way I see it, we're making up precious snuggle time that we lost back this summer.  

On the flip side of this lucky coin, it seems as if we've traded appetite for the ability to sleep soundly -- the very day her appetite began to perk up, Daddy and I woke in alternating shifts to soothe the fitful whimpering and tossing going on in the bassinet next to us.  (And before you raise your eyebrow at us for keeping our eleven month old in our room instead of hers, kindly recall that she sleeps hooked up to a machine that sometimes makes her sick with the force of Old Faithful.  We will NOT sleep more than an arm's length from her until this subsides.)

At first, we thought that she was "going through a phase", as this seems to be the typical explanation for behavior a parent or doctor can't explain.  She would sleep like an angel for two hours, then the flop-a-thon would commence, punctuated by little sobs.  

I guess it's just our turn to be the bleary-eyed parents for awhile, and that's fine.  Of all the wackiness we've been through with our silly guppy, a "difficult phase" almost seems reassuringly.....normal.  And hey, it's a fair excuse to drink cup after cup of very good coffee.  So if we're on your Christmas list, put Ava down for a jar of dill chips and her zombified Ma and Da for a bag of nice, full-bodied Sumatra.  

Here's to lovingly guided progress and excessive caffeination!

Cheers, Merry Christmas & Jubilate Deo!

The "Clenneycicles"

Wrap It Up, I'll Take It

Yesterday, I figured out what my Mushpuff would tell me she wants for Christmas,

If indeed she could talk:

The waxed paper from the examination table at the docor's office.

To her, it is the best and most cleverly constructed toy

In the history of all contrived amusements.

Bananas

Any parent can get caught up in a cycle of worrying over their child's growth and development.  

Being the kind of person prone to levels of anxiety that rivals every Richard Pryor character ever filmed, I'm beginning to notice that I go through cycles of getting knotted up over how Ava will be doing in a year instead of focusing on simply doing the next thing, which is how Daddy and I agreed we would raise her.

Let me give you an example of how this gets out of hand:

Ava isn't very hungry one day.  She takes a bit less of her morning bottle than she normally does, then promptly ejects it.  I worry that her stomach isn't digesting quickly enough to keep up with as many calories as she needs. 

 Why can't she eat in the morning without tossing her cookies?  Am I holding her wrong?  Will her stomach get stronger, or is that even the issue?

Later, I attempt to pack Ava's lunch with a heavier caloric punch by stirring butter into her sweet potato mush.  She takes three bites willingly before refusing to eat anything but dissolvable corn puffs, which have the nutritional density of a dirty baseball.  

am  I being a crummy parent by allowing her to enjoy anything but whole food?

I give her a sweet pickle just to keep her chewing, hoping that it will stir her gastric juices enough to wake up her tummy and ramp up a greater demand for nourishment.  She closes her fat fast on it and slurps intently for about thirty seconds, then pitches it onto the carpet below where it becomes a dog hair magnet.  So goes the second hairy pickle.  And the third.  

Good grief, we're going to go broke before we get more food in her than on the floor!  Then she'll always be hungry, and if i can't teach her how to eat, she'll end up all sick and sad like one of those dogs on the #%|£! Sarah McLaughlin ASPCA commercials!

It's evening, and we're all vegetated on the couch, enjoying our first holiday viewing of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  Without much fanfare or warning, Ava just barfs.  

Oh, this poor child!  How is she ever going to grow?  Her four month old cousin is eating three times as much!  What if she barfs until she's two?  What if she barfs EVERY DAY for the rest of her life?  What if we find out she can't properly digest anything but boiled rice and bananas and then there's a banana blight and all the bananas in the world just DIE, and then all the monkeys in the world who lived on the bananas just DIE, AND THEN AVA WILL NEVER GO TO THE ZOO AND SEE MONKEYS EATING NOTHING BUT BANANAS SO SHE DOESN'T HAVE TO FEEL ALONE IN THIS SCREWED-UP, BANANA-BARE WORLD?!?!?

 (Ava hates bananas, by the way....just like her Mommy. I think they taste like Elmer's Glue and I can't even stand the sound of someone eating one.)

So you see how things can get a little out of hand -- how I can end up in the shower after Ava's bedtime sobbing softly to myself because ALL THE MONKEYS ARE GONNA DIE, I JUST KNOW IT!!!!

And then I dry off, 

And put on my pajamas,

And curl  up in bed next to Daddy,

And fall asleep absolutely exhausted from worrying.

And when I wake up in the morning, there's a perfectly happy, fatty, petite little ten month old reaching for me with her silly-Milly grin on her face that says, "YAYYYYY, IT'S MORNING!  LET'S DO IT ALL AGAIN!"

And somehow, I'll feed myself the reassurance that she'll be just fine.  She'll be hungry sometimes, then barfy sometimes, and happy and grumpy and overexcited at times, and I'll think to myself, Hey, the sun came up in the same place and yet somehow, things are different.  They're okay.

And then I'll handle life just fine.... For awhile.